Thus says the LORD the God of hosts:
Woe to the complacent in Zion!
Lying upon beds of ivory,
stretched comfortably on their couches,
they eat lambs taken from the flock,
and calves from the stall!

Improvising to the music of the harp,
like David, they devise their own accompaniment.
They drink wine from bowls
and anoint themselves with the best oils;
yet they are not made ill by the collapse of Joseph!
Therefore, now they shall be the first to go into exile,
and their wanton revelry shall be done away with.

Amos is one of the oldest of the literary
(writing) prophets.A Judean (from the
southern kingdom) who was sent to northern Israel, he is best remembered for
his strident denunciations of the social injustices of his day.

In today’s passage, Amos rebukes the
aristocracy of Jerusalem, the wealthy elite, who led lives of comfort and
leisure in the capital city of the southern kingdom but were “not made ill by
the collapse of Joseph,” that is, cared nothing for the fact that their fellow
Israelites to the north (Joseph=the northern kingdom) were being decimated,
impoverished, and killed by repeated incursions of enemy armies.The fact that ten of the twelve tribes of the
LORD were being faced with exile and extinction did not make an impression on
these wealthy southerners.As a result,
Amos prophecies that they will share the same fate as their northern cousins:
“They shall be the first to go into exile!”So it came to be: when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon later invaded Judea
on multiple occasions (605, 597, & 587 BC), he exiled the Judean people, starting with the
wealthiest.

R. (1b) Praise the
Lord, my soul!Blessed he
who keeps faith forever,
secures justice for the oppressed,
gives food to the hungry.
The LORD sets captives free.R. Praise the Lord, my soul!The LORD gives sight to the blind.
The LORD raises up those who were bowed down;
the LORD loves the just.
The LORD protects strangers.R. Praise the Lord, my soul!The fatherless and the widow he sustains,
but the way of the wicked he thwarts.
The LORD shall reign forever;
your God, O Zion, through all generations. Alleluia.R. Praise the Lord, my soul!

Psalm 146 is the first of five “Alleluia” psalms
that end the psalter.Each begins with
the Hebrew word “Hallelu-Yah,” a second-masculine-plural imperative meaning
“Praise the LORD!”This set of five
psalms is like repeated tympanny beats and trumpet fanfares at the end of a great
symphony.They close out the psalter with
a raucous chorus of praise.

This Psalm stresses the character of the LORD,
the God of Israel:He is on the side of
the poor, the downtrodden, those who are weak, vulnerable and innocent.This is the character of the God we worship.

Not everyone believes in a god is like this.Other religions and other persons worship a god of power, a god who “helps those who help themselves, a god who looks out
for his own interests and expects you to do the same.

The ancient Israelite Psalmist was making a
daring statement by saying the Creator had particular concern for the
weak.We can see strong lines of
continuity between this psalm and the ministry of Jesus, especially Jesus'
teachings in the Sermon on the Mount, summarized by the Beatitudes.Notice how in this psalm the “LORD reigning
forever,” i.e. the kingdom of God, is linked to the comforting of the
downtrodden, just as in the Beatitudes.

But you, man of God, pursue
righteousness,
devotion, faith, love, patience, and gentleness.
Compete well for the faith.
Lay hold of eternal life, to which you were called
when you made the noble confession in the presence of many witnesses.
I charge you before God, who gives life to all things,
and before Christ Jesus,
who gave testimony under Pontius Pilate for the noble confession,
to keep the commandment without stain or reproach
until the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ
that the blessed and only ruler
will make manifest at the proper time,
the King of kings and Lord of lords,
who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light,
and whom no human being has seen or can see.
To him be honor and eternal power. Amen.

The Second Reading
proceeds on its way semi-continuously through Paul’s letters to
individuals.Here we reach the
conclusion of St. Paul’s first letter to Timothy, and listen to his concluding
charge to his young protégé.

Although this Reading
was not chosen for thematic agreement with the Gospel, nonetheless we see a
commonality in theme.St. Paul links
the virtues of compassion with the kingdom of God.He exhorts Timothy to practice “righteousness,
devotion, faith, love, patience, and gentleness.”These virtues, especially “love, patience,
and gentleness,” forbid us to be callous toward those in need, harsh with the
downtrodden, brusque with the uneducated.The practice of these virtues, St. Paul insists, is linked to one day
beholding “our Lord Jesus Christ, that blessed and only ruler … the King of
Kings and Lord of lords.”Yes, Jesus
Christ is omnipotent and eternal God, who cares for the weak, the poor, the
shamed, the rejected, the ridiculed, the slow, the feeble.Blessed are those who practice “love
patience, and gentleness” toward such, for they will enter the kingdom of this omnipotent king.

Jesus said to the Pharisees:
"There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and
dined sumptuously each day.
And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who
would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps
that fell from the rich man's table.
Dogs even used to come and lick his sores.
When the poor man died,
he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham.
The rich man also died and was buried,
and from the netherworld, where he was in torment,
he raised his eyes and saw Abraham far off
and Lazarus at his side.
And he cried out, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me.
Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue,
for I am suffering torment in these flames.'
Abraham replied,
'My child, remember that you received
what was good during your lifetime
while Lazarus likewise received what was bad;
but now he is comforted here, whereas you are tormented.
Moreover, between us and you a great chasm is established
to prevent anyone from crossing who might wish to go
from our side to yours or from your side to ours.’
He said, 'Then I beg you, father,
send him to my father's house, for I have five brothers,
so that he may warn them,
lest they too come to this place of torment.'
But Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the prophets.
Let them listen to them.'
He said, 'Oh no, father Abraham,
but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.'
Then Abraham said, 'If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets,
neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.'"

Several things attract our attention about this
Gospel.First of all, we notice that the
parable of the “Rich Man and Lazarus” is often employed in debates about
purgatory, with some Protestants insisting that it disproves this doctrine, and
some Catholics suggesting that it actually supports it.

Jewish views of the afterlife at the time of our
Lord held that those who died went to the netherworld (Sheol in classical Hebrew or Hades
in Greek) where they awaited the Day of Judgment.Within the netherworld there were places of
comfort as well as places of pain.The
“bosom of Abraham” was the best part of the netherworld, a pleasant land where
the righteous enjoyed the consolation of their ancestors, particularly Abraham
himself.The “bosom of Abraham” was
separated by rivers or chasms from the rest of the netherworld where others received punishments
appropriate to their sins.

In this parable, then, both the rich man and
Lazarus are awaiting the final judgment, and neither is in heaven nor in
hell.They are in Sheol, the place of the dead.It is to this Sheol or Hades
that Christ descended to usher the righteous into the presence of God, i.e.
heaven.

Does the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus
have bearing on the doctrine of purgatory?It does indirectly.Jewish faith
held that it was possible to intercede for those in the netherworld awaiting
judgment (2 Macc 12:44-45; Apocalypse of Zephaniah 11:1-2).In fact, in some Jewish writings of the
period, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Jewish saints) intercede for the dead awaiting judgment.So we can say that the Christian doctrine of
purgatory (an intermediate place or state of purification for those who die in God's friendship but still attached to sin) is rooted in ancient Jewish faith.The Rich Man of the parable is in a state similar to purgatory—he is
experiencing suffering, but he has not been condemned to hell and is still able
to communicate with the righteous (which would not be possible in hell).

Let’s turn to the moral meaning of the
passage.The Rich Man is receiving
punishment in the afterlife because of his sins, and the parable implies that
his primary sin was his utter disregard for the welfare of a fellow Israelite,
Lazarus, who begged at the door of his house in utter squalor, lacking even
basic necessities.In this attitude he
parallels the wealthy elite of Jerusalem from the First Reading, who were not
in the least distressed by the decimation of their cousins to the north.Jesus is condemning the callousness of those
who live lives of self-indulgence while ignoring the needs of the poor,
especially the poor of their own community, or their own community of faith.

The conclusion of the dialogue between Abraham
and the Rich Man is interesting.The
Rich Man pleads with Abraham to send someone to warn his brothers, but Abraham
responds, “They have Moses and the Prophets.If they will not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be
persuaded if someone rises from the dead.”

“Moses and the Prophets” is a reference to the
sum total of Jewish Scripture, often referred to as the “Law and the Prophets.”Both Moses and the prophets (like Amos above!)
stressed the importance of practicing economic justice and charity toward the
widow, the orphan, the stranger, and the poor kinsman (see Deut 15, Lev
25).Those that did not heed God’s
prophets had hard hearts, and even a resurrection would not persuade them,
because their impediment to repentance was not some rational objection to the
existence or power of God, but an attachment to riches.

Jesus words were prophetic.As it turns out, the wealthy of Jerusalem are
not persuaded by the resurrection of Lazarus (!) in the Gospel of John, just as they were not moved
to repentance by the Scriptures.John
records the aftermath of the resurrection of Lazarus:

John
11:46 but some of [the Judeans] went to
the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.47
So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council, and said, “What
are we to do? For this man performs many signs.48 If we let him go on thus,
every one will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our
holy place and our nation.” ….53
So from that day on they took counsel how to put him to death.

We also note how Jesus ties his own ministry as
one who “rises from the dead” with belief in the testimony of “Moses and the
Prophets.”In doing so, Jesus rules out
any form of Christianity which tries to reject the Old Testament, the
Scriptures of Israel (i.e. Marcionism).On a personal note, this was the text that persuaded me to become an Old
Testament scholar, since Jesus ties belief in the resurrection (i.e. Christian
faith) to confidence in the prophets of Israel (i.e. the Old Testament).

Sometimes we are tempted to think, “If only God
would pour out manifestations of His power, then evangelism would be
easier.We would convert the
nation.”But Jesus teaches us to think
more realistically about miracles.After
three years of the most remarkable miracle ministry in the history of the human
race, Jesus still found himself abandoned by even his closest followers at the
time of his greatest need.Even after
his resurrection, the officials to whom that miracle were reported paid the
guards to suppress the news (Matt 28:11-15)!

Miracles gather crowds, but they only
occasionally lead to the conversion of heart that Jesus seeks.Those that are hardened by greed, lust, or
other passions can always find a way to explain a miracle away, and even if
they can’t, they will simply ignore it or regard it as an inexplicable
fluke.There have been public miracles
in modern times witnessed by thousands (like the apparitions in Zeitoun, Egypt) that still haven’t led to mass conversion.

So what do the Readings say to us this Lord’s
Day?Firstly, to repent of any
self-indulgence in our own lifestyle, and any lack of generosity toward the
poor, especially those closest to us.Secondly, to start paying heed to the Scriptures today by turning to God in conversion, rather than waiting for some
sign, some apparition, some “act of God” to wake us up.